ScribeMedia.org

Fred Seibert at left.

ScribeMedia.org is a video site focusing on the business, technology and culture of the web. There is a six part, 90 minute interview with Fred Seibert, called "Building Digital Entertainment Brands," which talks about Next New Networks, his collection of internet channels. Other videos are on "The Power of Online Storytelling," "Maximizing the Monetization of Online Video Content," "Independent Filmmaking in the Digital World," and "Hollywood 2.0 -- Content and Commerce."

All the above links are to talking heads videos. I wish that they were transcripts instead, as they would be searchable and easier to speed read for relevant information. However, the interviews are with industry professionals, so their insights are worth hearing.

Screenwipe - Idea

A friend of mine who worked on the last 26 episodes of Monster By Mistake saw this video and thought of me. While the above presents itself as a comedy, it is (I swear!) a documentary.

I keep talking about reasons to avoid the gatekeepers and go straight to the audience. This video by Charlie Brooker says it with more style than I am able to muster and he speaks the truth.

The Networks vs. The Net

This article by Patrick Goldstein is a month old, but worth reading for describing the tension that exists between the top down networks and the bottom up net.

"You can see why people find YouTube subversive," says [Alex] Gregory. "If you were to put all the failed [TV] pilots up there and some of them became popular at a time when the shows the networks put on as series were failures, it would make them look terrible. In fact, it would make their jobs look superfluous. If you prove their taste wrong or incorrect, that's a pretty dangerous scenario."

Movie Downloads

Scott Kirsner has a list and ratings of the various movie download services. This is an immature market so far, but I believe that it's going to become the dominant way that we watch films at home.

Note which services are friendly to independents. It's a given that mainstream Hollywood films will be available. What's important is whether in the long tail world of the net there will be places for other points of view. I think that's animation's best hope for offering a wider range of content to audiences.

JibJab in Washington

I received an email from Evan Spiridellis, one of the founders of JibJab, saying that they've done a new 2 minute piece satirizing the news media that will be premiered at the TV and Radio Correspondence Dinner in Washington on Wednesday night. The attendees include the major broadcast and cable news personalities in addition to various politicians, including the President.

The dinner will be carried live on CSPAN and their short will also show Wednesday night on The Tonight Show immediately after Jay Leno's monologue. Anyone registered at JibJab can access a behind the scenes production blog on the making of the film (though I don't see a link; perhaps it will go up on Wednesday).

Clash of the Morons

Viacom is suing YouTube for $1 billion dollars for copyright infringement. This lawsuit demonstrates stupidity on both sides.

YouTube is not funneling any of the revenue it makes back to the people posting videos or the copyright holders. Many other video sites already have functioning payment plans. Scott Kirsner has put together a list available here. It's not like YouTube has to invent things from scratch. They can easily see what's available in the marketplace and craft a plan based on what others have done.

Viacom is trying to hold back the future. The Hollywood studios tried to strangle TV and home video in the cradle. Not only did they fail, they soon turned around and embraced both of them as major revenue streams.

And Viacom is hurting itself. With no Viacom content on YouTube, people watching online video will be satisfied to watch somebody else's content. What kind of business model withholds a product from customers and encourages them to move to the competition?

I support the idea of copyright. I believe that a creator (or the company that finances a creator) has the right to profit from work. No argument there. However, I see copyright in different terms than it currently exists.

In a digital world, you cannot control copying. Why devote time and money to fighting it? Better to acknowledge that copying will occur and figure out a system where every time content is copied or viewed, the copyright holder makes money. That way, rather than fight copying you can encourage it and profit from it at the same time.

The only way to protect a secret is to not tell anyone. Once one other person knows it, you've lost control of the content. You cannot guarantee that the other person won't spread the information around. That's how it is now with digital copying. Once you've made your work available to the public, you cannot stop it from spreading around. You can copy a file with as little effort as whispering to a friend. When the cost to reproduce something is that low, there's no effective barrier to prevent it.

It's not going to be easy to set up a compensation system and I suspect that initially there's going to be disappointment over the amount of money that digital copying generates. Rather than these two giant companies wasting resources fighting over an antiquated law, they should be lobbying the government to adapt the copyright law to unlimited copying for the digital age.

Just like the studios eventually made peace with TV and the VCR, they're going to make peace with online video. Even a moron can see that. Why not skip the lawsuits and just get on with it?

Money From Web Video

Scott Kirsner, the author of the Cinematech blog, has an article in the N.Y. Times about people who have been earning money from the videos they upload to various websites. This link will take you to a Cinematech entry that links to Kirsner's chart of video sites that pay for content and his book The Future of Web Video.

There's been discussion on other sites about an animation studio running a contest where they invite content submissions and keep the rights to all entries. Anyone producing content right now is foolish not to place it with one of these video sites. You maintain full ownership of your work. You have the potential to see some cash from it. Best of all, if your work proves popular with an audience, you may attract industry interest and you are negotiating from a position of strength.

The big players in film and TV are not looking for creative properties, they're looking for an audience. They're stuck having to guess what creative properties will attract that audience. If you can attract your own audience, you've beaten the system.